


never regret thy fall

by quixxotique (crownlessliestheking)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dreams?, Icarus and Apollo, Isolation, M/M, We Love Our Allegories And Mythology, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/quixxotique
Summary: Dirk isn’t afraid of drowning, he never has been. It would be a better way to die, getting away from here.(A voice in his dreams promises that he won’t die when he leaves, but Dirk never remembers when he wakes up. All he carries with him to the waking world is that strange sense of safety, unshakeable despite his own nagging doubts).





	never regret thy fall

**Author's Note:**

> Taken from a tumblr drabble, polished up a bit. Sometimes you gotta write the content you wanna see.  
> It'd be longer, but I'm trying for what the kids call brevity these days.

_“Never regret thy fall,_  
O Icarus of the fearless flight  
For the greatest tragedy of them all   
Is never to feel the burning light.”

-Oscar Wilde

 

\---

The wings become an obsession more than they do a project, over the years. It starts out with anatomical studies, drawings of pure interest and watching the seagulls fly. It starts out with dreams of flying, of leaving this place behind, of a wind in his wings and the sun warm above him. Weightlessness, freedom. A hand reaching out to him and a voice he can’t place, and a smile so blindingly bright he has to turn away. It’s one that warms him to his core, pumps an aching longing deep into the marrow of his bones. He never remembers the details; they are burnished bronze and faded with nostalgia, but he remembers the feeling clearer than anything else.

It’s the kind of soft wanting, yearning for something he can never have, that defines him. But he’ll be damned if he won’t try, if he won’t reach out in turn and grasp it with his own two hands. He’s doomed if he stays, doomed if he goes, and the idea might be a hare-brained scheme at best but it’s the only one he has. He could remain, live out the remainder of a short, miserable life here until the nearest Drone finally tears him apart. Until the Baroness finds out exactly where he is and decides to stop fucking around and spear him on a fork. Neither of those outcomes is particularly acceptable.

Nor is the likelihood of death, if he goes through with this plan, but. It’s strange, how much he _believes_ that it’ll work. Belief has never saved anyone, but with a Gordian knot like this in front of him, he might as well pick the one that’ll be more fun.

(The night he makes the decision, finally and for real, he dreams of bright approval and a warm light, arms circling him and holding him close. He dreams of a star given form, flickering and alive, pressed against his skin.)

It turns mechanical, as it must; Dirk knows the stories, and there is nothing like wax to limit him here. The frame takes iterative designs over two years to get perfect. As close to the theoretical ideal as he can manage. Red text takes over where human error can’t be tolerated, running simulations and only occasionally interjecting with discouragement and sarcasm.

He tries it for the first time, and it’s _just like his dreams,_ for a single moment. Until the wind lulls, and sends him plummeting ten feet into the ocean. It’s not a fall he can’t survive, and his eyes sting from the mordant water. He’s closer than he was before, yet still so far away. The longing only deepens.

He keeps trying. The next one, he’s airborne for a total of eight seconds, before he crashes again. And then again, when he drops like a stone into the sea, choking on salt as it burns its way down his throat and eyes. It doesn’t hurt more than the frustration and the disappointment does, when he has to drag the wrecked frame up the pylons and start over. Again, again, again. Every time, he falls.

Dirk isn’t afraid of drowning, he never has been. It would be a better way to die, getting away from here.

(A voice in his dreams promises that he won’t die when he leaves, but Dirk never remembers when he wakes up. All he carries with him to the waking world is that strange sense of safety, unshakeable despite his own nagging doubts).

He works, and works, and if his thoughts verge closer to prayer when he looks up at the sun, squinting against its blinding brightness, it’s more subconscious than it is a true decision. People

He’s running out of time, when he finally gets it right. Each feather perfect. The frame lightweight and fitted. He can sleep in it, if need be- the wings themselves will move automatically. He doesn’t have time to test it out when the Drones land on his roof one last time, break into the ceiling of the prison he calls home. He can only take a running start and launch himself out the window, into the blinding sun, and-

For a heart-dropping moment, he falls, away from the sky and towards the sea, its waves hungry and capped with jagged white teeth. Dirk has never been afraid of drowning, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the clouds, doesn’t close them even when the salty droplets flick up to catch at his cheeks.

And then, the wind catches his wings just right, an updraft yanking him back towards the heavens. He _soars._

Dirk laughs- a feral whoop of pure joy, and it seems like the sunlight kisses his face as he dares to go higher, higher, where the Drones will not follow.

It never occurs to him that there’s a reason.

Not until it’s been hours and he can’t quite breathe right and has the sun always been that big, that watchful? It’s brightness hurts his eyes, but he cannot look away. It fills the sky, beautiful and cruel.

He has to close his eyes, blink once though he can’t bear to, and the image is seared into his retinas in a perfect disk. He knows now why ancient cultures worshipped it. The only sounds are the wind in his ears, the creak of his wings. The thudding of his heart. A slow laugh, wondering like molten gold.

He opens his eyes again, finds himself face to face with- a man. No, not a man. Not with the way light mantles itself around him like a cloak, divinity and warm dripping off him. Not with brown skin that glows with vitality, not with the perfect Cupid’s bow of his mouth, the inhumanly bright green of his eyes. Dirk didn’t know that color existed.

He feels a palm brush his cheek before he sees it move, and his breath leaves him all at once. Sun-warmed skin, not much hotter than his own, pressed against it. Calloused fingers, a thumb that sweeps over the arch of his cheekbone, up to the points of his shades. He forgets how to think about anything other than the feeling of being touched.

The shades are up to rest precariously in his hair, but the hand doesn’t withdraw.

Time stops. They hang suspended above the world, Dirk’s eyes wide and struggling to adjust to the sudden brightness, the shock of vulnerability.

And the slow smile of the being in front of him, lips curving and parting for perfect white teeth and perfect dimples.

“Well,” says the first real voice Dirk has heard other than his own. “Aren’t you something, old bean? I've been waiting for you, you know.”

His breath comes rushing back in, and Dirk shakes, flounders for something to say. He feels like he’s hurtling to the sea all over again.

The man’s smile takes on a softer edge.

Dirk falls.

 


End file.
